Babu (title)
{{short description|Indian honorary title}}
File:Babu Bhoop Singh of Kohra.png of Kohra (estate), Leader in the Indian Rebellion of 1857]]
Babu is a historical title of nobility used by rulers and chieftains in the Indian subcontinent.{{Cite book|editor-last=Prasad|editor-first=Jagdish|place=Allahabad|url=http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.63142 |title=Manual Of Titles United Provinces Of Agra & Oudh |date=1929}}{{Cite book |editor-last=Impey|editor-first=W.H.L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0m0-AQAAMAAJ&q=Babu+ |title=Manual of Titles for Oudh: Showing All Holders of Hereditary and Personal Titles in the Province |date=1889 |publisher=Printed at the Government Press, North-Western Provinces and Oudh |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Lorimer |first=John Gordon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NL0sAQAAMAAJ&q=Babu |title=Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ʻOmān, and Central Arabia: Historical. 4 v |date=1970 |publisher=Gregg |language=en}}
Civil servants
{{see also | Civil_Services_of_India#Concerns_and_Reforms | l1= Concerns regarding Civil Services of India | Civil service reform in developing countries | The Indian Clerk }}
In British India, baboo often referred to a native Indian clerk. The word was originally used as a term of respect attached to a proper name, the equivalent of "mister", and "babuji" was used in many parts to mean "sir" as an address of a gentleman; their life-style was also called "baboo culture" often also humorously appealed as "babuism". The British officials treated baboos as workers who had both Indian and British connections.{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Babu|volume=3}} Since the mid-20th century, the term babu is frequently used pejoratively to refer to bureaucrats of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and other government officials,{{cite web |title=babu, n |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/14245 |website=OED Online |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=22 April 2015}} especially by the Indian media,{{cite news |title=Yet to start work, Natgrid CEO highest paid babu | url = http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Yet-to-start-work-Natgrid-CEO-highest-paid-babu/articleshow/15610191.cms?referral=PM |date=23 August 2012 |access-date = 2014-09-17 | newspaper = The Times of India}} while the Indian bureaucracy is called "babudom", as in the "rule of babus", especially in India's media.{{cite magazine
|url=http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl1818/18181170.htm
|title=A barbed look at babudom: Will the typically British humour of Yes Minister work if transplanted to an Indian setting? Viewers of a Hindi satellite channel have a chance to find out.
|date=1–14 September 2001
|first=Anand
|last=Parthasarathy
|magazine=Frontline
|quote=Bureaucracy knows no bounds...
|url-status=dead
|access-date=20 May 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121109112820/http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl1818/18181170.htm
|archive-date=9 November 2012
}}{{cite news | title = PM Modi tightens screws, gives babudom a new rush hour | url = http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/PM-Modi-tightens-screws-gives-babudom-a-new-rush-hour/articleshow/41482792.cms |date=2 September 2014| access-date = 2014-09-17 | newspaper = The Times of India}}{{cite web| title = Babu|work=Collins English Dictionary| url = http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/babudom
| access-date = 2014-09-17 }}
Other uses
In Nepali, Hindi/Bihari, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Bengali, Telugu, and Odia languages, it is a means of calling with love and affection to spouses or younger brothers, sons, grandsons etc. It can be found in the urban trend to call "babu" to girlfriends or boyfriends, or common-friends to symbolize deep love or dearness. In many Bengali families fathers and sons are usually named babu, as a matter of intimacy, with daughters or mothers.
On the island of Mauritius the word Babu-ji refers to the warrior community within the Indo-Mauritian community. This community consists mainly of Bihari Mauritians, whose ancestors landed on the island as Coolies or indentured sugar cane field labourers during the 1810–1968 British colonial rule.{{cite web |last1=Claveyrolas |first1=Mathieu |title=The 'Land of the Vaish'? Caste Structure and Ideology in Mauritius |url=https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3886 |access-date=2015-09-15}}{{cite book |last1=Nave |first1=Ari |title=Nested Identities: Ethnicity, Community and the Nature of Group Conflict in Mauritius (C. Bates (ed.), Community, Empire and Migration) |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-137-05743-3_3 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-05743-3 |doi=10.1007/978-1-137-05743-3_3 |access-date=2001-06-25}}
See also
References
{{Reflist|2}}
{{Bengali Hindu people}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}